Know Your Personality Strengths

Hi and welcome back,

Are you always one of the first to join a gathering? Do you love big parties? When you have an assignment, do you wait until the last minute to complete it because you need that deadline pressure to motivate you? If so, you’re an extravert.

If instead, you’d prefer a heart-to-heart with a friend rather than an evening out with your crowd; and if external deadlines make you so uncomfortable that you finish way ahead to take the pressure off yourself, then you’re an introvert.

All of us can find ourselves somewhere along the extravert-introvert arc—or rainbow, as I prefer to call it.

The same is true for the impulsive-reflective rainbow. If you react almost instantly to a new suggestion or challenge—sometimes before you consider the wisdom of your reply—you'‘re impulsive. Instead, if when offered an opportunity you stop to weigh up the pros and cons—sometimes so slowly that you miss your chance altogether—you’re more reflective.

Nowhere on either rainbow is ’good’ or ‘bad’. Each location has merits as well as disadvantages. But because these two personality dimensions are extremely resistant to change, it’s important to recognise where you are on each. When you know yourself in this way, you’ll be better prepared to act in your own best interests when you have to respond to a change in your environment.

Here, then, is how best to prepare yourself for the Christmas party season, depending on your personality:

Extraverts can easily become overloaded and over-tired because they’ll want to attend every event. Today, right now, decide how many outings you can realistically manage each week until the New Year, and write this in a reminder boldly in your dairy—repeatedly!

Introverts can do the same, but they’ll want to set much lower targets. Furthermore, they’ll be wise to refrain from agreeing to any invitation on the spot. Instead, take a day or so to decide whether the effort of being with larger groups is worth the stress involved for each event, and only then accept or decline the invitation.

Impulsive individuals, like introverts, need to wait before accepting or declining an invitation. To help you, whenever you’re invited to something, always, always say you have to check your diary (never carry it with you!) or that you’d like to consult your partner, so you have time to decide whether you’re heading for overload.

Reflective individuals will naturally pause before responding to an invitation, but to avoid hesitating for too long and inconveniencing a host, set yourself a deadline to respond. Twenty-four hours is good because that’s enough time for consideration, but not so much you get caught up in endless cost-benefit analyses.

Finally, remember you can almost always change your mind. If it’s from ‘no’ to ‘yes’, the host will probably be delighted. The harder shift for most of us is to refuse an invitation, especially if we’ve already said ‘yes’, even if yo know you wouldn’t be at your best if you accept.

In my next post, I’ll explain how to turn down an invitation while avoiding upsetting the person who’s asked you, or causing them to feel rejected.

Until then, happy holiday planning!

Warm winter wishes,

Linda